BOTCHED bugs. Last Sunday, I blogged about Observer's expose on spies from US National Security Agency (NSA) who intercepted phone and email messages of "Middle Six" Security Council members, a dirty trick which was largely blacked out by US media. Now, latest development...

Follow-up story by Observer, March 9: A 28-year old female employee at UK's top-secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been arrested by Gloucestershire police last night on suspicion of contravening the Official Secrets Act pertaining to leaking NSA's spy activities. The woman has been released on police bail pending further inquiries but more arrests are expected. GCHQ is the electronic surveillance arm of the British intelligence service.

Observer also confirmed today that GCHQ was asked by the Americans to provide valuable information from 'product lines', intelligence jargon for phone taps and e-mail interception. There are elements of the intelligence community opposed to using British security resources to help the US drive towards war, which caused the information to be leaked to Observer.

The paper says the leak marks a serious breach between the Blair government and its intelligence community.

I WANT WAR, but I don't know how much it will hurt you(r pockets): Dubya said this March 6: "The price of doing nothing exceeds the price of taking action if we have to... I will not leave the American people at the mercy of the Iraqi dictator and his weapons."

Even as the war calls heightened in the last one week - Dubya's pc noted - the White House has assiduously avoided the debate over the cost of war.

Perhaps it's harmful to talk about war money. Last fall, Bush's former economic adviser, Lawrence B. Lindsey, gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal and predicted that the war and its aftermath could cost as much as $200 billion in direct cost. He was abruptly terminated despite the fact that the Democratic's House Budget Committee concluded his estimate was accurate. But there are conflicting figures that are anything but obtrusive:

CNN, Feb 26: Pentagon planners believed the cost of a war with Iraq could balloon to $95 billion or higher, eclipsing earlier estimates.

Washington Post: "If the war costs between $100 billion and $200 billion, it would still be relatively inexpensive in historical terms. Because of the growth in the U.S. economy, wars are getting cheaper, at least to the American consumer. In a $10 trillion economy, the cost of a second Gulf War would be between 1 percent and 2 percent of the nation's annual gross domestic product, compared with 12 percent for the Vietnam War, 15 percent for the Korean War and 130 percent for World War II.

"Measured against a federal budget of about $2 trillion a year, the cost of the war would be proportionately larger: between 5 percent and 10 percent."

That's the figure for a quick war. If the fighting is protracted, and Saddam Hussein blows up his country's oil fields, most economists believe the indirect costs of the war could be much greater. And it will reverberate through the U.S. economy for many years.

Who pays, ultimately? According to New York Times, Gulf War I (1991) cost more than $60 billion, or about $80 billion in current dollars. Out of which, USA Today estimated the cost to US allies was $45 billion. Then, Bush Senior's administration launched "Operation Tin Cup" to pass the hat around U.S. allies to help pay for war with Iraq. As a result, the bill to American taxpayers for the Persian Gulf War was about $7 billion, a fraction of its cost. In the end, U.S. taxpayers paid about 12 percent of the military costs of the Gulf War, with the remainder of the burden being shared among such countries as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Germany and Japan.

This time around, it's doubtful if any of these countries will contribute significantly.

So far, only Britain has pledged (through Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown on Tuesday) to set aside 1.75 billion pounds (US$2.76 billion) to cover the cost of the war. A recent study carried out for the Royal United Services Institute suggested that a war similar to the last Gulf War in 1990 to 1991 would cost Britain around 3.5 billion pounds.

What's the bottom line? A more independent estimate on the cost of war comes In a report from Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus. He looks at not only the direct costs of war and its aftermath, but the potential impact on stock and oil markets. He argues that the total macroeconomic costs of war and its aftermath could reach in a worst case scenario as much as $1.6 trillion (by comparison, Bush's 2004 budget proposal for the entire federal government is $2.25 trillion).

Read these and go figure how deep is Dubya's pockets:

Washington Post, In Talk of War, Cost Is Avoided. In his prime-time press conference Thursday night, President Bush did not specifically address the pink elephant in the room.

Financial Times: The Bush administration's tax and spending plans will turn a $900bn surplus into a $1,800bn deficit over the next 10 years, according to estimates from the US congressional budget office (CBO).

My business trip to Singapore yesterday taught me one (not so new) thing when it comes to paying bills. In God we trust, the rest pay cash. Make no mistake. The Americans deserve what they have put into the White House.

"When it comes to the Net, a lot of us suffer from Repetitive Mistake Syndrome. This is especially true for magazine and newspaper publishing, broadcasting, cable television, the record industry, the movie industry, and the telephone industry, to name just six.

"Thanks to the enormous influence of those industries in Washington, Repetitive Mistake Syndrome also afflicts lawmakers, regulators and even the courts."

"... We can end the tragedy of Repetitive Mistake Syndrome in our lifetimes — and save a few trillion dollars’ worth of dumb decisions — if we can just remember one simple fact: the Net is a world of ends. You're at one end, and everybody and everything else are at the other ends.

Thanks Julian Mathews of Trinetizen.com for pointing me to Weinberger's Hyperorg where I first read about this while in Singapore yesterday. I was chewing on Searls-Weinberger's notion on my way back to KL:

New York Times, Online Newspaper Shakes Up Korean Politics: "South Korea is the most wired country in the world, with broadband connections in nearly 70 percent of households. In the last year, as the elections were approaching, more and more people were getting their information and political analysis from spunky news services on the Internet instead of from the country's overwhelmingly conservative newspapers."

Korea's Malaysiakini? The change, according to New York Times, is attributed to unusually-named OhmyNews, a feisty three-year-old startup and the most influential by far. Around election time the free online news service was registering 20 million page views per day. Although things have cooled down a bit after the general election, even these days the service averages about 14 million visits daily, in a country of only about 40 million people.

OhmyNews is led by Oh Yeon Ho, 38, a lifelong journalistic rabble rouser who wrote for underground progressive magazines during the long years of dictatorship in Korea. He said:

"My goal was to say farewell to 20th-century Korean journalism, with the concept that every citizen is a reporter... The professional news culture has eroded our journalism, and I have always wanted to revitalize it. Since I had no money, I decided to use the Internet, which has made this guerrilla strategy possible."

Another Internet news service Pressian carried an article titled "The Roh Moo-hyun Government and Internet Media", saying "most of the Internet media have been pro-Roh Moo-hyun; so much so that... In the future Roh's government will rely on broadcasting and the Internet, ignoring major newspapers such as the Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo and DongAh Ilbo.".

"Computer down time" is an excuse commonly given to cover all kinds of processes and efficiency problems. As we embark into the technological world of tomorrow, this cannot be used as a reason for not delivering products and services of quality to customers. It is a problem that needs to be addressed urgently, together with training in the use of technology and networking to a larger and more reliable framework."

Soo brought his Australian relatives to the mamak stall for supper, and he said: "As the teh tarik kept flowing well past midnight, I reminded them that Malaysia is definitely more advanced because we have teh tarik and late-night open-air hawker stores which would never pass the health regulations in Sydney. What's so great about online interaction when you can have live chatter over teh tarik, eh?" But the point he was making to the Aussies is this, when he queued up to pay his assessment bill, as he wrote in Star In-Tech March 6, Waiting in line, dreaming of online:

"I took a number. There were 184 numbers ahead of me.... Considering the number of counters available, 184 is not actually a long wait. But of course, due to technical reasons again, not all counters can be used. It appears that only certain computers with the right configurations can be used. No wonder the clerk manning the counter configured for badminton court bookings looked rather happy that morning because he had no one to attend to.

"In this IT era, and especially in a state believed to be the most IT-savvy in the country, I am sure we all wonder what is so difficult about making all the computers in the payment centre handle different transactions. After all, there we were, all patiently waiting to pay up, and a major portion of what we pay would be going into their payroll."

Amazingly, they both remain diehard optimists who believe Malaysia can do it. Meanwhile, the mamak stalls offer services with maximum up-time, and almost 24/7.

OKAY okay, I will stop complaining. Woke up at 6am, trying to blog. Discovered my Home Streamyx was down. Error message 718 (but I paid my bill promptly), no response from PPP peer, asking me to re-enter "correct" username password. For the first time, Streamyx's Customer Intercation Centre ( ! ) admitted there are problems at "certain locations". But nobody picked up my call at 6.10am. Left a message. No response so far. Could their DNS have been cracked?

Satish's (Subang Jaya node) was down since last night, and mine (Puchong node) since early this morning, it has ceased to be just two isolated cases, I reason to myself. So I better shut up. Doi!

CAN A BLOGGER change his uploaded content?Malaysiakinieditor said Oon Yeoh, who maintains Transition weblog on the online newspaper's branding, has been told that o­nce his blog goes live, he cannot change its contents. Earlier, a reader complained he couldn't locate Oon's posting that (he claimed) took jibes at two other readers who dissented his views on the Iraqi standoff. In response, Oon explained that weblogs are meant to be dynamic and interactive.

By taking an absolute, non-evasive anti-Anti-War stance in support of US on the Iraqi stand-off, Oon has attracted much reaction to his blog. Morally, I salute his courage in daringly going against the grains, and I admire him for holding his fort single-handedly with unwavering conviction. We have often debated and argued over our differing views on Bush's morality in waging war on Iraq. After each intellectual bout, we would bid fond farewell and decide to agree to disagree.

Oon has also kindly pointed to his detractors to visit my blog if anti-war advocacy is what they look for. Many thanks for that. But I can't help feeling that many a detractor of his took offence on his stance and style of articulating his views - which are essentially the given idiosyncracies of bloggers - rather than respecting his right to own and voice his opinion. I think we shouldn't take the easy-way-out by killing the messenger.

"After discussions with Malaysiakini editor Steven Gan, I've agreed that the best way to make additions to the blog without controversy is to NOT make any changes to the original blog itself but to post a brand new update... So, in the future, when I have any changes to make, they will appear on top of the original blog, with a time stamp on it."

"Changing or deleting entries destroys the integrity of the network. The Web is designed to be connected; indeed, the weblog permalink is an invitation for others to link. Anyone who comments on or cites a document on the Web relies on that document (or entry) to remain unchanged. A prominent addendum is the preferred way to correct any information anywhere on the Web. If an addendum is impractical, as in the case of an essay that contains numerous inaccuracies, changes must be noted with the date and a brief description of the nature of the change.

"If you think this is overly scrupulous, consider the case of the writer who points to an online document in support of an assertion. If this document changes or disappears--and especially if the change is not noted--her argument may be rendered nonsensical...

"...Think before you publish and stand behind what you write. If you later decide you were wrong about something, make a note of it and move on.

"I make a point never to post anything I am not willing to stand behind even if I later disagree. I work to be thoughtful and accurate, no matter how angry or excited I am about a particular topic. If I change my opinion in a day or two, I just note the change. If I need to apologize for something I've said, I do so.

"If you discover that you have posted erroneous information, you must note this publicly on your weblog... The only exception to this rule is when you inadvertently reveal personal information about someone else. If you discover that you have violated a confidence or made an acquaintance uncomfortable by mentioning him, it is only fair to remove the offending entry altogether, but note that you have done so.

Blood's five other suggestions on weblog ethics are:

Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.

If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.

Publicly correct any misinformation.

Disclose any conflict of interest.

Note questionable and biased sources.

The uptake is that Oon and his Transition has instigated readers to think and interact in a meaningful discourse over a subject of material importance. Another is the refreshing latitude looming within our society of gagging minds when Malaysiakinipledged it "does not endorse the views of our contributors which run counter to our editorial stand, but we will continue to publish them to provide our readers a platform for debate."

This is the element of a knowledge society in practice. I am learning along the way, too.

NEWS BLACKOUT in the Land of Freedom: Online media Salon records that alleged US spying at the UN Security Council "Middle-Six" delegations, exposed by The Observer March 2, was huge news in the rest of the world but largely ignored by the US media.

When it was exposed that Colin L. Powell had recklessly referred to an alleged - but never denied - plagiarised dossier prepared by UK intelligence in his Feb 5 presentation to the UN Security Council, media voice in America was equally muffled. Read my earlier blog here.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and National Security Agency (NSA) refused comment. My email inquiry to US Embassador KL and her press officer Whitaker has also not been replied. I blogged this on Sunday. UPDATE: Wed March 5, 7:23AM: Dan Gillmor also commented: "The U.S. government isn't denying the report, according to Newsday, one of the few U.S. newspapers that has followed up what strikes me as an explosive charge... Needless to say, the webloggers are going nuts with the story, spreading it far and wide no matter what U.S. media do."

Bush's image-maker resigns:New York Times reports: Charlotte Beers, Bush administration's point person in efforts to improve America's image among Muslims abroad after September 11, is quitting her State Department job after 17 months. Her resignation will take effect in two weeks. Beers was former chairwoman of advertising agencies J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather, respectively. CNN calls her Bush's Muslim propaganda chief.

Colin L. Powell, who called Ms. Beers "a key and vital member of my team",
says she resigned on health reasons. Last week, Beers testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that her mission has been daunting: "The gap between who we are and how we wish to be seen and how we are in fact seen is frighteningly wide." She offered a downbeat assessment of the US image in the world, not only in Arab and Muslim countries but also in Europe.

Financial Times: "Ms Beers's departure... is likely to be seen as the most obvious sign of the US failure to win over the world's "hearts and minds" in the war on terrorism. Excerpts:

"She said millions of people in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Indonesia had "gravely distorted, but carefully cultivated images of us - images so negative, so weird, so hostile that I can assure you a young generation of terrorists is being created".

"A series of television spots broadcast throughout the Muslim world (including Malaysia) last autumn was Ms Beers's most notable achievement. They sought to portray the tolerance and comfort experienced by Muslims living in America, but met stiff resistance from many US allies and were abandoned early this year.

"... Although Ms Beers never publicly acknowledged it, her efforts will also have been hampered by the Bush administration's conduct of foreign policy."

Yesterday, I blogged about Athen-based US career diplomat John Brady Kiesling, who has chosen to send Powell a stinging but inspiring letter when he resigned last week in protest against the country's policies on Iraq.

WILL there be eventful happening? Seemingly with some divine intervention, things did happen 1985/86 whenever Dr M assigned his deputy as acting PM while he was away. Pairin Kitingan was returned as Sabah CM and the Memali bloodshed took place when Musa Hitam was left to call the shots. Similarly, in 1998, the table turned on Anwar Ibrahim after he barely enjoyed all the vested power as acting PM while it lasted. Today, the PM takes his two-month leave, making Pak Lah the acting PM and finance minister. Would events of substantial magnitude take place that history has to repeat itself, or change course?

One nagging question: Is there jurisdiction for Dr M to lead NAM for the next three years after he is supposed to cease his position as a head of government by October? Meaning, will Dr M resign after all?

This is more a question for Pak Lah than for me when we retire every night. I will sleep better.

* * *

They don't fight, they don't serve. Now they don't teach: Non-Malays shun the army and civil service. A known fact. Now they don't take up teaching. "There are more Malay teachers in national schools because non-Malays do not consider teaching a preferred profession,” said Education Minister Tan Sri Musa Mohamad. One wonders what Chinese and Indian Malaysians are more interested in nowadays.

Petrol prices may go up further: Petronas Dagangan Bhd CEO Ibrahim Marsidi said the continuing atmosphere of uncertainty with the imminent US-led attack against Iraq could drive up petroleum prices further. In the eventuality, Malaysians may have to pay more for fuel as prices of petroleum products are now approaching the highest levels in more than a decade, almost similar to that during the Gulf War in 1990 and 1991.

“Prices are fluctuating. I do not know where they are heading,” said Ibrahim.

* * *

Website to help weed out bogus Datuks: Selangor will set up a website for the public to identify the list of recipients of honours in the state in a move to ensure its recipients are accountable to the public and to weed out bogus Datuks, Selangor Council of Datuks president Datuk Gan Kim Siong said. The Council could be reached at: Tel: 03-3341-3733 or Fax: 03-3343-9833.

If you log on to TM Net and Streamyx websites, you only get Siti Nurhaliza. You will not get to see any announcements on what's happening within their NOC that slows down bandwidth or strands up your nano-packets of ICQ messages. A check on these websites showed their last announcement was on Feb 20, about its "Wireless Freedom with tmnet hotspot" in Bukit Bintang. But I received an email from its CustCare on Feb 28, telling me: "There was a nationwide breakdown yesterday but it has been rectified last night." Now you see, a nationwide breakdown warrants neither a fore-warning nor an after-event apology. Because, the problem still persists even today!

A Business Streamyx user (IT company) from Kampung Pandan called to tell me his 1Mbps link has been down since March 2 to 3. The IMbps Streamyx (supporting only 10 Internet users) at my own office in KL has been extremely slow since the last four days. We were told TM Net's international link was down! In my community website USJ.com.my, readers reported that TM Net in Sabah has been slow like snail. And the final nail on the coffin on a service touted "as fast as bullet": the 384kbps Home Streamyx in USJ11 (user is a senior aircraft engineer at Malaysia Airlines, to whom I recommended Streamyx) was as slow as 22kbps this morning!

Are other ISPs having the same problem?Oon Yeoh confirmed his office Internet link in Bangsar using Time DotCom, and KW Chang his Jaring dial-up has been fine all along, yesterday and during days TM Net network was choked. Maxis.Net? Who says they have real Internet service anyway?

So, we called Streamyx Customer Care. One is aware Streamyx is in Cyberjaya, the most canggih broadband geo-sphere in Malaysia. But calling their Customer Interaction Centre (supposedly reachable at 1300-88-9515 from 8am through 12 midnight) is more difficult to get through than dialing-up Timbuktu. Streamyx dysfunction is systemic by nature, but remedy has been ad-hoc all this while.

Last night, I can't blog, I can't surf, I can't ICQ because the packets could not move, and I got auto logged-off, apparently for trying too hard.

Today is public holiday, I don't suppose those guys in Cyberjaya will stay back to turn around things that went topsy-turby even on normal weekdays.

COLIN L. POWELL was sacked. Of course I am exaggerating. Bush needs him very much to continue lying for a war on Iraq. The thing is John Brady Kiesling, a career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan, has chosen to send the US Secretary of State a stinging but inspiring letter when he resigned last week in protest against the country's policies on Iraq. The letter came to the fore when his friend sent a copy to The New York Times, which published it. Kiesling will leave his position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens effective March 7

Excerpts of the letter:

"...But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.

"The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests....

"... The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves.

"I urge you (Colin Powell) to listen to America’s friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine... When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet?

"...Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has “oderint dum metuant” really become our motto?

"I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share."

REVEALED: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war:The Observer, Sunday edition of The Guardian, reports March 2: The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations. It involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York.

Intelligence bugs are targetted at the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York - whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war US-UK alliance.

Details of the aggressive surveillance operation were revealed in a document leaked to The Observer. The paper says the language and content of the document were judged to be authentic by three former intelligence operatives it showed to.

The Observer understands the surveillance operation was requested by Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice. It says the existence of the clandestine campaign is deeply embarrassing to the US in the middle of their efforts to win over the undecided delegations.

The leaked document: It's in the form of a memorandum, dated 31 January 2003 and sent by Frank Koza, chief of staff in the 'Regional Targets' section of the National Security Agency (NSA) - the US body which intercepts communications around the world. The memo, circulated to both senior agents in NSA and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency, asks for "up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq."

Only yesterday did I mention in my blog that I am very paranoid about CIA and NSA's capacity to tap all Internet data flowing in and out of Malaysia. I have no doubt of their intelligence networks.The Observer says, while many diplomats at the UN assume they are being bugged, the memo reveals for the first time the scope and scale of US communications intercepts targeted against the New York-based missions.

And they sell it as a war of morality. Read how people reacted to the expose in this Forum.